Govt. considers importing nurses in face of severe shortage

Dec 21, 2016 News

…GPHC needs 300 more

There currently exists such a severe shortage of nurses within the public health system that

Minister of Public Health, Dr. George Norton

Government might have to consider importing these health professionals. This disclosure was recently made by Minister of Public Health Dr. George Norton.
“We might have to consider importing nurses from overseas,” said the Public Health Minister as he speculated that “some nurses seem to not know what they want.”
A number of individuals have over the years undertaken training in various aspects of nursing but have since migrated, moved to privately operated institutions or simply left the profession altogether for one reason or another.
“We need a lot more nurses than we have,” said Minister Norton, as he added “we shall be working with all of the stakeholders to address this situation.”
Earlier this year, Minister Norton had disclosed that his Ministry and Government were paying close attention to a nursing shortage, particularly at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). The Minister had informed then too that the public health hospital was lacking the required complement of nurses.
One of the solutions that the Minister has shared was that the administration will be reviewing the salary scale of nurses which he highlighted as a major contributor to the shortage of this category of health workers.
”We know we have been losing nurses particularly to other countries and even within the country to the private sector. One of the main reasons is emoluments – the salary scale – that is being addressed at the level of the government now with the unions,” Minister Norton related.
The Minister however noted that there is an adequate corps of doctors at the GPHC. “Staffing in general is a big problem in the health sector. For instance at the Georgetown Public Hospital we are short of 300 nurses, I think the only area that we are to some extent comfortable is with physicians, but of course they are general practitioners in most of the cases.”
The shortage of nurses has seen a number of other issues arising at the GPHC. These include the lengthy waiting period patients have to endure to be attended to.
But the Minister had said that the Ministry of Public Health was aiming to build the capacity of nurses through several on the job training programmes.
The Public Health Ministry was gearing to collaborate with the Ministry of Communities, as well as the Department of Public Service for the employment and payment of the health care workers in the public health care system.
According to the Minister, the public health sector is in dire need of all suitably qualified nurses. In fact the Minister was appealing for the swift resolution of an investigation into a leak of the 2016 State Final Examination for Professional Nurses. The Minister at a press conference last month said that he was anxious for the investigation to be completed so that the way can be paved for the addition of suitably qualified nurses in the public health system.
“I can tell you we need them and we need them urgently too,” asserted the Minister.